Some of those taking Ozempic or Wegovy are learning that too much of a good thing is never good.
Semaglutide, the medication prescribed under the brand names Ozempic, for treating Type 2 diabetes, and Wegovy, for weight management, works by mimicking the hormone GLP-1, which is released by the gut after eating. The hormone has several effects in the body, such as stimulating insulin production, slowing gastric emptying and lowering blood sugar.
It has been hailed for its weight-loss benefits, most conspicuously among celebrities. Oprah Winfrey recently said she uses weight-loss medication and lauded “the fact that there’s a medically approved prescription for managing weight and staying healthier, in my lifetime.” She said it felt “like a gift.”
But between Jan. 1 and Nov. 30 this year, at least 2,941 Americans reported overdose exposures to semaglutide, according to a recent report from America’s Poison Centers, a national nonprofit representing 55 poison centers in the United States.
California accounted for about 350 of the reports, or around 12%, according to Raymond Ho, the managing director of the California Poison Control System. Ho said the number roughly corresponds to the proportion of California’s population to the rest of the country.
The nationwide number of semaglutide overdoses this year is more than double the 1,447 reported in 2022, which was more than double the 607 semaglutide overdoses reported in 2021.
There were only 364 reported semaglutide overdoses in 2020 and 196 in 2019, less than 10% of the number that occurred so far this year.
America’s Poison Centers released the data with a disclaimer that the figures likely represent an undercount in the number of cases involving semaglutide, as the center only included those voluntarily reported to poison control centers.
“It is an alarming trend from a poison center perspective,” Ho said. “We get the usual dosing error calls, and all of a sudden there’s an explosion of people calling much more regularly about this.”
The use of semaglutide and other GLP-1 imitators has surged in popularity over the last year as a quick and effective way to manage weight loss. More than 4 million prescriptions for semaglutide were issued in the United States in 2020, according to federal data, and usage of the drug has continued to grow since then.
Dr. Stephen Petrou, an emergency medicine physician and toxicology fellow with California Poison Control, said there were multiple factors contributing to the increase in overdoses.
“Not only is there rising social popularity” of the drug, Petrou said, “but there’s also wider FDA indications for use.”
Semaglutide was patented by the Danish pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk in 2012 and has been available in the United States since the FDA approved it in 2017. The drug was originally released as Ozempic for Type 2 diabetics to manage blood sugar levels. Moderate weight loss was found to be a common side effect of the drug, and the FDA approved a different formulation of semaglutide, called Wegovy, for that purpose in 2021.
Ho and Petrou said the different formulations of semaglutide could help explain why it has led to so many more overdoses than other drugs of its class. Both are administered via weekly injections, with Wegovy in single-use pens and Ozempic in needles that can vary in dosage. Standard dosages range from 0.25 mg to 2.4 mg for weekly injections, depending on the prescription.
“Someone who is unable to get Wegovy can resort to using Ozempic instead, because it is the same medication, but they may start to [adjust] their dose” upward, Petrou said. “That’s when they might encounter problems.”
Ho and Petrou said the vast majority of semaglutide overdose reports are accidental, either due to patients not waiting a week between doses or by misunderstanding dosing instructions. Unlike the GLP-1 hormone, which is rapidly metabolized by the body, semaglutide and similar medications have much longer half-lives, meaning the medication can build up inside the body if not enough time elapses between doses.
Furthermore, semaglutide can also be taken orally as a daily pill — sold under the name Rybelsus — but overdoses are rarely reported.
“We’re not seeing cases of mis-administration or toxicity or overdose with that medication,” Petrou said.
Ho and Petrou explained the signs of semaglutide overdose can resemble those of hypoglycemia, also known as low blood sugar. Symptoms can begin with increased heart rate, sweating, dizziness and irritability. More serious cases can cause confusion, delirium and coma.
“If they have hypoglycemia, the good majority of them will have to be admitted to the hospital and monitored and watched closely, because of how long these drugs last,” Ho said.
Ho encourages everyone who is prescribed semaglutide to thoroughly read the medication’s label and follow the dosing instructions listed.
“We always say this: The dose makes the poison,” Ho said.
Anyone who needs emergency poison assistance or has other poisoning-related inquiries can call the national Poison Helpline at (800) 222-1222 or visit the Poison Help website.
Home prices in the U.S. rose for a ninth straight month, reaching a fresh record as buyers battled for a stubbornly tight supply of listings.
A national gauge of prices rose 0.6% in October from September, according to seasonally adjusted data from S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller. A seasonally adjusted measure of prices in 20 of the largest cities also rose 0.6%.
“U.S. home prices accelerated at their fastest annual rate of the year in October,” Brian Luke, head of commodities, real and digital assets at S&P Dow Jones Indices, said in a statement. “We are experiencing broad-based home-price appreciation across the country, with steady gains seen in 19 of 20 cities.”
The index measures a period when 30-year mortgage rates were climbing toward 8%, shutting out increasing numbers of would-be homebuyers. Many are current owners who are postponing moves while clinging to the cheap loans they landed when borrowing costs were at historic lows. Their reluctance to sell has left the market starved for listings, keeping prices high for people determined to seal a deal for one of the few available choices.
On a year-over-year basis, price gains accelerated, climbing 4.8% in October, compared with a 4% annual increase in September. Detroit had the biggest increase, at 8.1%, followed by San Diego with 7.2% and New York with 7.1%. Portland, Oregon, was the only one of the 20 cities where prices fell year over year.
Pressures may ease a bit in the coming months. Mortgage rates now have dropped below 7% and many economists expect them to slide further as the Federal Reserve winds down its inflation-fighting efforts. Lower rates would give house hunters a boost in purchasing power, and may encourage more owners to list their properties, potentially leading to a softening in prices.
An index by Redfin Corp. showed that price growth slowed for a third straight month in November. Home prices rose 0.6% from October, the smallest monthly increase since June, and were up 6.4% from a year earlier, the brokerage reported.
You wouldn’t know it to look at them. Junior Alaska Airlines flight attendants say they are barely getting by on poverty level wages, many of them building up debt and scrambling to make rent.
Yes, they look sleekly professional on the job. But some with children qualify for food stamps and housing assistance. Some who live in cities far from their airline base resort to sleeping in their cars in crew parking lots the night before a flight, unable to pay for a hotel.
Alaska Airlines fight attendants picketing for a new contract on Dec. 19, 2023, in SeaTac, Washington. (Kevin Clark/The Seattle Times/TNS)
Flight attendants Rebecca Owens, 34, and Thresia Raynor, 54, both based in Anchorage, set up a private Facebook page in September for “Alaska Airlines FAs experiencing hunger and homelessness.” It’s filled with tales of financial distress, offers to Venmo help and tips on where to get free food in the cities to which the airline flies.
“When you go to work, you see all these bright shining faces. We’re known for that, right?” Owens said. “You don’t see the difficulty that people are facing. Oftentimes it’s actually hidden because people feel so ashamed.”
“We needed somewhere that people can finally talk about it so that nobody is struggling alone anymore,” she said.
Paula Isla-McGill calls for better wages with fellow Alaska Airlines fight attendants in picketing for a new contract on Dec. 19, 2023, in SeaTac, Washington. (Kevin Clark/The Seattle Times/TNS)
That was the backdrop to the picket earlier this week by about 1,000 off-duty Alaska Airlines flight attendants outside airports at Alaska hubs across the country, including Seattle-Tacoma International Airport.
That came two months after flight attendants’ union negotiators rejected a company proposal that Alaska’s Chief Financial Officer Shane Tackett calls “the single largest offer we’ve ever made to settle a flight attendant contract.”
The Association of Flight Attendants union representing 6,900 employees at Alaska has been negotiating with management for a year. In October the company offered a 15% wage increase, with 2% hikes each year over four years.
The union said that taking the 20% inflation since 2019 into account, even with the couple of incremental raises since then, the offer was equivalent to just a 1% raise above pre-pandemic levels.
Alaska Airlines fight attendants picketing for a new contract on Dec. 19, 2023, in SeaTac, Washington. (Kevin Clark/The Seattle Times/TNS)
The pressure from high inflation since COVID-19 battered the economy has caused a crisis among low-wage earners. Flight attendants who had been just getting by now find the job unsustainable.
“We recognize our flight attendants need increased wages,” Tackett said in an interview. “We continue to come to the bargaining table in good faith to reach a contract that ensures our flight attendants are paid competitively, so that each of them has the opportunity to provide for themselves and their loved ones.”
Mediation discussions will resume next month. Last Tuesday, the AFA announced it will hold a strike vote early in the new year, though any actual strike can only happen after a multistep process and remains a long way off.
Over two decades of recurrent industry downturns, first following the 9/11 attacks, then the global financial crisis and most recently the COVID pandemic, airline unions granted concessions to management.
Ian Haywood calls the rallying cry during the Alaska Airlines fight attendants picketing for a new contract on Dec. 19, 2023, in SeaTac, Washington. (Kevin Clark/The Seattle Times/TNS)
As has been the case with labor groups across the country, flight attendants feel the time is now to win back lost ground.
Flight attendants at American, Southwest and United Airlines are likewise deep in tense contract bargains. In August, the American flight attendants union voted to authorize a strike and the Southwest attendants union on Thursday also decided to hold a strike vote.
With the U.S. airlines all competing on pay while striving to keep costs down, whoever goes first may set the standard for all.
Sara Nelson, AFA international president, said the lack of a living wage for new flight attendants represents “the last vestiges of the sexism in the industry” from the early days of aviation when “flight stewardesses” were not expected to be independent breadwinners.
Nelson called for a restoration of America’s “social compact,” the American dream that if you work full time you can expect a living wage, a secure retirement, health care and time off to spend with family.
“Jobs across our economy are in crisis right now,” she said. And with labor power resurgent, from the autoworkers to the Hollywood writers, “there’s an expectation now across the working class that things are going to get better,” Nelson said in an interview.
Alaska, she said, is “going to need to go significantly higher to make this work.”
Arcane pay structure
Through Owens, Raynor and another person — not through the union — The Seattle Times interviewed seven Alaska Airlines flight attendants with significant levels of financial stress. All asked not to be identified for fear of losing their jobs.
Owens and Raynor, neither of whom is living on the edge financially, asked to be named in this story to stand up on behalf of others more vulnerable.
Raynor’s husband is a 30-year air traffic controller, without whom, she said, “I would have never been able to hang on and keep my job long enough to earn a living wage.”
And Owens, who has been at Alaska only 18 months after years as a paramedic on medevac helicopters and ambulances, likewise said her pilot husband’s income is “why I have a home and a vehicle and food on my table. Alaska does not pay for that.”
“This story needs to be told,” Owens said. “If you go on TikTok and follow flight attendants, a lot of times it’s really glamorized. But unless you come from means you cannot have this job. And that is wrong on absolutely every level.”
Flight attendant pay at Alaska is calculated through an arcane formula. They are paid not by the hour but by distance flown.
The current entry level pay rate is $24.95 per flight segment, with a one-day trip counted as a minimum of five segments and longer flights at eight.
What Alaska Airlines crews call a “milk run” in the state of Alaska — for example, Flight 66, Anchorage to Seattle with stops along the way at Cordova, Yakutat and Juneau — counts as 5.1 flight segments and is scheduled to take nine hours.
For that, a new flight attendant will be paid just $127 gross. That’s $14.14 per hour. And if the trip ends up taking an extra 90 minutes, which happens easily on these multileg journeys especially in winter, the rate would be $12.12 per hour. Extra pay only kicks in when the delay is more than two hours.
“That’s not even minimum wage,” said Raynor.
The minimum wage in Washington state is currently $15.74 per hour, rising to $16.28 next month. However, because they are covered by a union contract, the flight attendants are exempt from the minimum wage law.
Alaska spokesperson Alexa Rudin in response to this example said the complexities of the contract and pay structure mean that flight attendants can receive additional compensation.
She said they will get extra pay for operational events, such as ground delays of more than two hours or being stranded, and can also earn more by bidding for positions on a flight with additional responsibilities, such as serving the first class passengers.
A new flight attendant at Alaska will have guaranteed flying time for the month of about 90 flight segments, which essentially means flying for 18 days in the month, with 12 days off. For that, the current pay rates mean their base pay will be about $2,200 gross, or just less than $2,000 a month after taxes and deductions, a figure verified through pay stubs reviewed by The Seattle Times.
By working extra days, and being away from home most of the month, that can be bumped up to about $2,500 take home.
Once a flight attendant has been in the job for more than 10 years, the situation improves dramatically. The pay rate at the top of the scale, 16 years into the career, is $59.42 per flight segment, 2.4 times the starting rate.
In addition, more senior flight attendants get first dibs on longer routes that pay more for a given time commitment.
A trip from Anchorage with a 24-hour layover in Honolulu, spanning three days and counting as 16 flight segments, would earn Raynor nearly $1,000 gross while a new attendant on the same flight would get less than $400.
And a new flight attendant would likely only get such a choice flight by being on call when an assigned attendant is out sick.
Enduring financial distress
After six weeks of training that is unpaid, new flight attendants start out “on reserve” initially, meaning they must be on call and available to fly for a certain number of days.
One new flight attendant who commuted to work by air, as many do, slept in a car at the airline base while on reserve waiting for a call up. Unable to afford a hotel, the flight attendant used a gym to shower and freshen up for the job.
The flight attendant recalled one particularly miserable month when no call came for the entire reserve period, which meant five nights straight sleeping in the crew parking lot.
Another said that when she first showed up from a job at a different airline at her new Alaska base and asked her supervisor for housing suggestions, she was stunned at the response that she should sleep in her car as others did. She didn’t have a car in that city.
Instead she took a too-expensive Motel 6 room, then couch-surfed, cadged a shared hotel room with a colleague and slept some nights in the airport — which isn’t allowed, she said, but “I chanced it.”
Another new flight attendant in her mid-20s is a single mom with a toddler who stays with her sister’s family. When she works, she must pay for day care while her sister is at work. Overwhelmed with debt, she said she recently wept on the phone with a credit card customer service rep.
She says junior flight attendants must hide such hardship behind a “mask” while on flights.
“You have to shove everything away. You know it’s not the passengers’ fault,” she said. “A lot of us look put together. We’re in debt and using the money to look put together.”
Another single mom with three small kids said half her paycheck goes directly to child care. She said she lives on a shoestring, with food stamps and state assistance, works part time for Instacart, and buys only the necessities for her children.
Another late 40s divorced flight attendant has a toddler and works an office job on the side every day she isn’t flying. She considers herself fortunate because her dad left her a small inheritance that allowed her to buy her home. “The rest of the savings, I dip into every month,” she said.
Every one of the flight attendants interviewed said they love the job, and want to hang on and try to make it work financially.
If they just can keep going until they have the seniority to get better pay and choose the best flight routes, they see it as a lifestyle offering freedom and flexibility.
All are hoping for a big boost in this pending contract.
Alaska CFO Tackett said, “Our flight attendants do a phenomenal job serving customers. I think they’re the best in the industry.”
“We recognize we’re going to have to increase that [October] offer to get this done,” he said, adding that one focus in the talks is to “increase the rates of pay for folks at the lower end.”
But he cautioned that the cost of the contract cannot be so high as to damage the business.
“We do have to ensure that we can remain competitive … and continue to offer value to [passengers] and to have a company that can be here for an entire career,” he said.
Tackett said Alaska anticipates total additional costs when all its labor contracts are settled will be $400 million more than in 2019, 40% of the airline’s profit that year.
After the COVID downturn, the major U.S. airlines settled first with their pilots, granting big contracts amid a pilot shortage.
Last year, Alaska gave its captains initial pay increases of between 15% and 23% and then bumped that up another 11.2% this year to match bigger increases at rival airlines.
Union leverage
The last time Alaska Airlines flight attendants struck was 30 years ago, when they introduced a novel and highly successful tactic designed to make it difficult for the airline to replace strikers.
Dubbed CHAOS, or “Create Havoc Around Our System,” the concept was to call limited and intermittent lightning strikes on individual flights. The first one in August 1993 started when the cabin crew on one flight declared a strike and walked out just as passengers were about to board.
The union won a big contract victory that year. Nelson said the AFA is primed to use the tactic again.
However, under the Railway Labor Act that governs airline employees, there is a long process to get to that stage.
First a National Labor Relations Board mediator in the contract talks would have to declare an impasse. The NLRB would then offer binding arbitration.
If either party rejects that option, the NLRB can “release” the parties from mediation and impose a 30-day “cooling-off period.” The NLRB this month declined to release the American Airlines flight attendants union, insisting on continued mediation.
At the end of the 30-day cooling-off period, the White House can set up an emergency board to recommend a settlement. Only if that fails, after a further 30 days, would the union finally be free to strike.
Still, the AFA has another card to play besides striking. Many flight attendants point to Alaska’s offer to pay $1.9 billion to acquire Hawaiian Airlines as evidence that it has enough money to grant a generous contract.
The union will meet at the end of January to decide whether to support or oppose the company’s planned acquisition.
“We will not support the merger if there is not clear benefit for the flight attendants,” said Nelson. “And the bare minimum of that is a fair contract in Alaska.”
When Jeanne Keevil was a college student at the University of Oregon in the 1940s, journalism was a man’s world.
When male students who had served during World War II began returning to school as the war ended, Keevil, like the other women on the staff of the Daily Emerald, the university’s independent, student-run newspaper, turned their roles over to them, her daughter, Connie Quinley, said.
At the time, Quinley said, that was perceived to be the right thing to do. But roughly two decades after her college graduation, it would be Keevil at the helm of a newspaper.
“The best part of her career, and the longest piece of it, was for the Irvine World News,” Quinley said.
The Irvine World News, brought under the Register’s wing in 2000, was started as a community paper in 1970, a year before Irvine was incorporated as a city. Keevil was hired as its first editor in 1971, and covered the city since its Dec. 28, 1971 incorporation. She remained in that role until her retirement in 1992.
Keevil died in Portland, Oregon, on Dec. 15 at the age of 96.
During Keevil’s tenure at the Irvine World News, the city saw rapid transformation, including residential development, a push to be environmentally clean and the expansion of UC Irvine.
She was the 1989 recipient of the Orange County Press Club’s John (Sky) Dunlap Award, its highest honor presented to a journalist for their achievements in journalism and community involvement. She is also an honoree in Irvine’s “Wall of Recognition,” which honors those who have made significant contributions to the city.
Keevil would sometimes describe hardships she faced covering what was then a fledgling city, said Quinley. She would butt heads with city officials, most often men.
“She was a champion for the paper. She was a champion for good journalism,” Quinley said. “And that, coming from a woman, didn’t go over very well sometimes.”
Keevil was both “a lady and a newspaper person,” Quinley said. “She walked a fine line between the very plain-spoken newspaper world — people smoked and a lot of journalists drank at work in the old, old days — and very, very proper city woman.”
“She was her own woman,” longtime Irvine World News editor Don Dennis said of Keevil. “Integrity was her strongest point. She was honest, by-the-book when it came to journalistic integrity. And she was a real lady. Very polite with immaculate manners. A great friend.”
Dennis, who worked with Keevil starting in 1976 and replaced her when she retired in 1992, said Keevil represented the strength of the Irvine World News. From the beginning to the end of his time as editor, Dennis said he would often ask himself, “What would Jeanne do here?”
“That stuck with me until my retirement,” said Dennis, who retired in 2010. “I would try to live up to it, but frankly, it’s hard to live up to the example she set. She was a very strong woman who stuck to her principles.”
Tim Burt, who spent more than 30 years as the sports editor for the Irvine World News, described Keevil as a “remarkable woman and editor.”
“So kind and supportive and a great friend,” he said.
Even after her retirement, Keevil couldn’t stay away from reading and writing, Quinley said. A lifelong Presbyterian, Keevil dedicated her later years to writing a column for Portland’s Kenilworth Presbyterian Church, and before that, she wrote and produced the newsletter for the Presbyterian Church of the Master in Mission Viejo for many years.
“She couldn’t exist without a newspaper,” Quinley said. “Every town she went to, she would buy their paper.”
Keevil’s love for reading and writing rubbed off on her daughters, both born in Newport Beach. Quinley, now a resident of Anchorage, Alaska, said she briefly freelanced for various publications. Her older sister, Katie Essick, works as a freelance editor in Portland and spent many years as a writer and editor for publications in both California and Oregon, including the Associated Press, The Oregonian and The Portland Tribune.
Keevil was born in 1927 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and raised in Springfield. She briefly moved to San Diego in January 1944 due to her father’s military career but soon relocated to Oregon to attend college that year. After she graduated with a degree in journalism in 1948, she moved back to California and worked at papers in Riverside and San Joaquin counties.
Around 1952, she met Thomas Keevil, who was then the editor of the Banning Record. After they married in 1954, the Keevils moved to Costa Mesa, where they joined what would become the Daily Pilot — Jeanne Keevil as a reporter and Thomas Keevil as an editor. The couple divorced in 1966, and Thomas Keevil died in 1988.
Jeanne Keevil went on to work at the Leisure World News and the Saddleback Valley News before she was hired by the Irvine World News in 1971.
“She loved journalism. She earned a career she never regretted,” Quinley said.
A memorial service is planned for Saturday, Jan. 20, in Portland. For details, contact the family at [email protected]
A massive alligator took down a huge Burmese python and was recorded trying to swallow the snake in the Shark Valley region of Everglades National Park in Florida by Alison Joslyn, a wildlife photographer.
According to The Miami Herald, the alligator incident occurred on Dec. 20, when Joslyn spotted the alligator and snake while riding her bicycle. The wildlife photographer managed to record video footage of the alligator attempting to swallow the Burmese python.
Joslyn told Storyful, “What a thrill to come across an alligator eating a large invasive Burmese Python in Shark Valley as I was out riding my bike. As an amateur wildlife photographer, I knew immediately I was seeing something very special.”
Joslyn explained that she was initially “worried” because the alligator did not appear to be “chewing or moving.” However, she was relieved when she saw the alligator breathing and looking at her.
“I was thrilled. I’m aware of the havoc pythons have wreaked in the Everglades, and I know not much preys on them, if anything. Score one for the good guys, I was thinking.”
The Miami Herald reported that while the python was dead, the alligator either had trouble or was not in a hurry to swallow the snake, as the alligator still had the python in its jaws when Joslyn returned to the spot of the fight more than three hours later.
READ MORE: Video: Rescuers save pilot who crashed in alligator-infested swamp
Joslyn’s videos and photos were uploaded to the “Alligators of Florida” Facebook Group on Dec. 20, quickly gaining thousands of views and hundreds of comments by members cheering for the alligator’s victory over the non-native python.
Preview of 2024! “An alligator was caught on camera devouring a python at the Everglades, and the woman who shot the video said it was something very special. (Video: Alison Joslyn via Storyful)” https://t.co/VRZfawEgxb
In her Facebook post, Joslyn wrote, “Came across this unusual sight today while cycling Shark Valley in the Everglades. That’s one less python to terrorize the Everglades. Gator was quite lethargic and I was wondering if it might be the cold, he was tired from fighting the snake, maybe got bit by the snake, started swallowing the snake and had to stop because it was too big? Other thoughts?”
According to the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC), Burmese pythons are not protected in Florida because the snakes are considered an invasive species; as a result, Burmese pythons can be killed on private property with permission from a landowner. According to the FWC, Burmese pythons are one of the largest snake species, with some Burmese snakes in Florida averaging between 6 and 9 feet long.
The U.S. military is trying to reassure shipping companies that a multinational force is making it safe to sail through the Red Sea and Suez Canal even though attacks from Yemen-based Houthi rebels show no sign of stopping.
The Pentagon is “engaged with industry on a near-daily basis to gauge needs and provide reassurance that the international community is there to help with safe passage,” Air Force Lieutenant Colonel Bryon McGarry, a Defense Department spokesperson for the Middle East and Africa, said Thursday in an emailed response to questions.
So far, that’s not proving enough for most shipping lines to gamble that a drone or missile aimed at their vessels won’t be one that gets past the defenses.
“It will take a little while for shippers to get a sense about the security situation,” said Mark Cancian, a retired Marine officer and senior adviser with the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. “If it turns out that the U.S. and the coalition can maintain safe passage, then I think they’ll come back. But right now they really can’t be sure.”
Cancian said in an interview that some shippers will remain “more risk-averse than others. Ones that have connections with Israel might be more reticent.”
The Houthis, who are backed by Iran, have said they’re targeting ships linked to Israel to show support for Palestinians, though ships without direct links to Israel also have been singled out.
Half of the container-ship fleet that regularly transits the Red Sea and Suez Canal is avoiding the route now because of the threat of attacks, according to new industry data. Many tankers and container ships are resorting to the longer — and costlier — route around the southern tip of Africa, which may lead to higher prices for oil and a variety of consumer goods.
A.P. Moller-Maersk A/S, the world’s No. 2 container line, said it’s preparing to resume Red Sea passages “as soon as operationally possible.” But even Maersk has cautioned that “the overall risk is not eliminated in the area,” and the company said it would “not hesitate” to re-evaluate the safety situation for its vessels and employees.
Gene Moran, a defense analyst and retired Navy captain, once commanded the USS Laboon, the destroyer that shot down four drones in the Red Sea Saturday. From his perspective, the shipping companies are still looking for the American-led coalition to do more.
“This method doesn’t appear to address the cause of the threat,” Moran said in an interview. “The Houthis are able to operate from the uncontrolled portions of Yemen. Something will need to be done about that. We seem to be moving very gingerly when the conditions seem to call for a more forceful response.”
But the Biden administration has been reluctant to take action that could turn Israel’s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip — which began after that group’s Oct. 7 assault on Israel — into a broader regional conflict. Shipping companies may share that concern.
“If the United States were to start shooting at Houthi camps, that would arguably increase the risk, not decrease it,” Cancian said. “So I don’t think the shippers are particularly anxious to start that.”
The Pentagon has said the Red Sea security initiative it’s leading — named Operation Prosperity Guardian — brings together forces from the U.K., Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway, the Seychelles, Spain, Australia and Greece as well as some other nations that don’t want to be named. Yet the military hasn’t spelled out details of how it will operate.
Major General Pat Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, said earlier this month that the coalition will function as a “highway patrol” in the sea.
Moran said that the mixed nature of the threat, which includes potential attacks from drones, missiles and small boats, makes it more challenging to respond because not all the ships participating in the force will have the same capabilities as the U.S. ships.
For now, the operation will continue indefinitely.
“We are not putting a timeline on this operation,” said McGarry, the Pentagon spokesperson. “We’ll stand firm with our partners in the region for as long as it takes until the threat to international shipping in these waterways has ceased.”
A 15-year-old Florida boy is accused of shooting his 14-year-old brother after that teenager fatally shot their 23-year-old sister as she sat outside with her baby on Christmas Eve, authorities said Tuesday.
Police said the brothers had earlier gotten into a fight during a family shopping trip over who was getting what for Christmas, according to CBS News. When the siblings’ mother took them all to their grandmother’s house in Largo afterwards, the fighting continued. The 14-year-old reportedly pointed a semiautomatic handgun at his older brother’s head and threatened to kill him.
The boys were separated by an uncle who managed to get the younger sibling out of the home where his sister, Abrielle Baldwin, was sitting outside with her child. Baldwin is said to have asked her brother to end the dispute.
The 14-year-old, apparently angered by his sister’s request, berated her with pejoratives, then threatened to shoot Baldwin and her baby before firing a bullet into the woman’s arm and chest. Her baby was uninjured.
The 15-year-old reportedly then emerged from the grandmother’s house with a semiautomatic handgun and shot his younger brother in the stomach. He then fled the home, throwing the gun into a nearby yard, and was later taken into custody at a family member’s house.
The younger brother, who might be charged as an adult for first-degree murder, is in stable condition in a Tampa-area hospital after undergoing surgery. The 15-year-old has been charged with attempted first-degree murder and tampering with physical evidence.
CBS News reports both teens have prior arrests for vehicular burglaries.
The Pinellas County Sheriff’s Department told the Daily News that “the investigation is still open and active, therefore the report is unable to be released at this time.”
The United States Air Force (USAF) will be studying the potential environmental impact of infrastructure upgrades needed to host a detachment of Republic of Singapore Air Force (RSAF) F-15SGs in Guam for the long term.
These include the construction of airfield pavements and an aircraft hangar at Andersen Air Force Base in Guam, along with maintenance and utilities buildings, fuel systems, fencing and utilities, roads and parking, stormwater management infrastructure, and earth-covered ammunition storage magazines.
Base authorities issued a notice on Dec 13 stating their intent to prepare an environmental impact statement for these upgrades.
Singapore’s Ministry of Defence (Mindef) and the US Department of Defence (DOD) had in 2019 signed an agreement on the establishment of an RSAF fighter training detachment at Andersen Air Force Base. The detachment in Guam is expected to be established around 2029.
The proposed upgrades are expected to take place over three to seven years and affect some 84.6ha of land — about the size of Clementi Forest — by the north-west corner of the sprawling base in Guam. The island is part of the Northern Mariana chain of islands in the central Pacific and is an unincorporated territory of the US.
Responding to queries by The Straits Times, Mindef said: “The establishment of any long-term overseas detachment requires careful and in-depth feasibility studies from all involved parties. The Notice of Intent to prepare an Environmental Impact Statement is part of this process, which includes environmental impact studies, and studies that evaluate factors such as suitability of the location and training area, infrastructure and logistic support.”
The ministry added that it would continue to work closely with the DOD and relevant agencies to ensure that the RSAF’s requirements are met in a cost-effective and timely manner.
In its Dec 13 notice, Andersen Air Force Base also said the upgrades are aimed at providing critical infrastructure that would enhance the US’ military posture west of the International Date Line and enhance the ability of the USAF “to support US and partner nation forces within the region and strengthen the US’ ability to respond regionally and worldwide”.
Guam, approximately 4,700km from Singapore, is considerably closer than Mountain Home Air Force Base in the US state of Idaho. The latter, located 13,680km away, is where the RSAF has had an F-15SG training detachment since 2009.
Dr Collin Koh, a senior fellow at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, said the setting up of an F-15 detachment in Guam would enable the RSAF to access the vast training areas in the airspace and waters surrounding Guam, noting that “the Republic of Singapore Navy also has training links with Guam through Exercise Pacific Griffin, this web of arrangements also helps potentially build the SAF’s (Singapore Armed Forces) overall capacity for integrated or joint warfare”.
He added that there was a “definite logistics benefit” to having an overseas fighter training detachment nearer to Singapore as it would enable the RSAF to bring its fighter jets back to Singapore faster in the event of a contingency and would require the use of less support aircraft such as tankers for refuelling the fighters.
The RSAF sent its F-15s and other jets for short-term training stints in Guam on four previous occasions — in 2017, 2019, 2021 and 2023. Mindef says these overseas training detachments are integral to meeting the RSAF’s training requirements as the access to vast airspace overseas allows the RSAF to overcome local airspace constraints and conduct high-end, realistic training.
A rush of veteran K-pop boy groups returning with new releases stirred up nostalgia among old K-pop fans and enriched the music scene.
That includes the so-called “second-generation” boy groups, those who debuted between 2003 and 2011, such as legends SHINee, Ukiss, Infinite, Teen Top and TVXQ.
SHINee started the comeback race with the release of its eighth studio album, “Hard,” in June, breaking a hiatus of more than two years.
The group celebrated its 15th anniversary this year with the studio album and its sixth standalone concert in Seoul.
In a sign of its popularity, the quartet’s three-day concert drew around 30,000 fans.
The concert was the first in almost seven years as the members had to report for mandatory military duty and also due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
SHINee debuted under SM Entertainment in 2008 and is recognized for its contemporary rhythm and electro-pop sound.
The band established a strong position in the K-pop scene with trendy music and outstanding performances.
Ukiss, a leading K-pop boy band in the 2010s, also followed suit.
After five and a half years, the group returned with its 12th EP “Play List” in June.
The EP, after a year in the making, is led by the title track “The Wonderful Escape,” a house pop single with a retro sound that brings back the explosive energy of Ukiss.
Ukiss debuted in 2008 with the EP “New Generation” and rose to stardom with its megahit single “Man Man Ha Ni,” and went on to drop several more hits, including “Bingle Bingle” and “Shut Up.”
The six-piece act celebrated its 15th anniversary this year by staging two shows in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, in July.
Another veteran boy group, Teen Top, made its comeback in July after nearly three years.
Teen Top returned as a quartet with its fifth single album “4Sho” after the group’s leader C.A.P left the group in May over controversies sparked during a live broadcast with fans.
Teen Top brought its explosive energy back from when it debuted in 2010.
Their debut saw the K-pop scene vitalized with fast-tempo dance singles such as “Rocking,” “Miss Right” and “No Perfume For You.”
In July, the group met with its fans face-to-face for the first time in four years by holding a two-day concert in Seoul.
In the same month, Infinite released its seventh EP “13egin.”
The album was the first in five years and also the first after establishing its own agency, Infinite Co.
Having an agency of its own allowed the group to be in charge of the album production, from the concept of the music, and choreography to outfits, hair and makeup.
A full group return would not have been possible without Nam Woo-hyun, who had been diagnosed with a rare cancer earlier this year. He underwent surgery for a gastrointestinal stromal tumor in April and is in recovery.
Despite the doctor’s recommendation to rest after surgery, Nam decided to push ahead with Infinite’s comeback as planned.
Infinite was even able to hold a full unit two-day concert in Seoul in August.
Last but not least, the legendary TVXQ dropped its ninth studio album “20&2” on Dec. 26 to celebrate its 20th anniversary.
TVXQ debuted as a quintet in December 2003 with its debut single, “Hug,” and garnered the biggest fandom among the second-generation K-pop acts thanks to its numerous hits.
The group wrote many firsts in K-pop history, from becoming the first Korean group to top the Japanese major music chart Oricon’s Weekly to holding the first-ever K-pop standalone concert at Tokyo dome back in 2009.
In 2010, three members left the group to form a separate trio, JYJ.
Changmin and Yunho have continued the team as a duo.
The group is scheduled to hold a standalone concert on Dec. 30-31 at the Inspire Arena, a new K-pop concert venue in Yeongjeong-do, Incheon.
Dallas police arrested a 45-year-old man Tuesday in the fatal shooting of an Army veteran on an Uptown street.
Corey Antwon Thompson is in the Dallas County Jail on a charge of murder. Bond is set at $1.25 million.
Dallas police asked for the public’s assistance in tracking down Thompson after Roderick Butler was fatally shot Dec. 20 in the 2200 block of McKinney Ave.
Butler, 46, had struggled with PTSD and experienced homelessness after his service but his family told Star-Telegram affiliate WFAA, things were looking up for him.
Thompson was arrested at the 2600 block of Bickers Street, just four miles from where Butler was slain.
